Overview
- Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said in a podcast interview that better AI will make the iPhone a “digital passport” rather than a product that AI replaces.
- He argued the phone already holds payments, IDs, health records, messages, and photos, which give AI useful context tied to one person.
- He said Apple’s custom chips offer a quiet edge because future “agent loops” can run on the device, using local files and apps without calling a central server.
- He said Apple has not shown a frontier AI model and that Siri trails newer chat systems, yet brand trust and ecosystem lock‑in give the company time to roll out changes.
- He noted that third‑party AI apps already shape how iPhone owners use AI, showing that owning the hardware does not guarantee control of the user’s AI experience.